Analyzing Maya's Bad Girls

Maya, a British artist, producer, and mostly known by her stage name M.I.A. was praised as one of the world’s most influential people by two magazines in 2010. Her music generally focuses on stereotypes, but sometimes her music passes the limits. The music video for Maya’s “Bad Girls” created a major controversy in 2012, as it was used in a campaign for gaining equal rights for women in Saudi Arabia, and due to the documentation of common Arab stereotypes like drifting and the ban on women driving. She purposely altered some stereotypes to assert her message of female empowerment. She used several images showing women in power. Through her rebelling and confident tone, daring attitude, strong moves, and questioning background in the video,
He included broken buildings, Arabic spray painted on the walls, empty deserts, landscape, Arabian cars, drifting of cars that are common in Arab, men wearing thawb and with horses, and women in hipster hijabs driving and with guns. She put the men and the women in their actual clothing, but women’s clothes are too stylish and colorful. No men’s faces are shown in the video, but the women’s faces are. It is exactly opposite of what actually happens in Saudi Arabia. In reality, women are taught or forced to hide their faces. In one part, Maya hides her face with hijab before driving, but there is no modesty in that, instead, it was to show her as a rule breaker who doesn’t wear a seatbelt or follow any driving rules. In this video, hijab is a sensitive image because in western cultures hijab is mostly understood as the oppression of the Muslim women or a symbol of being terrorist. It’s surprising that M.I.A., who is non-Arab and non-Muslim, she is putting her thoughts on hijabs. Intentionally or unintentionally, she is presenting the hijabs negatively by using guns in her music video. The part where one male was riding a horse, it’s also symbolic. The horse can be imagined as a woman who is controlled by the men. In one part, he was unable to control the horse what can be seen as the men’s inability to control
Audiences will listen to the song and also enjoy it, but they won’t understand the purpose of it or care about it. It would have been much more effective in getting people’s attention towards the purpose of gender equality if the tone was a little slow and it had some sad emotions instead of excitement. The music video was to promote a serious message, but the dance moves made it feel like it was for popularity and an advertisement of the western culture in Arab. So, the tone takes away the key point of the music